Dreamer Boy
by Ketchupwings
Summary: The fire has destroyed Tadashi's world. Struggling to come to terms with what he's become, dreamer boy Tadashi begins to spiral downwards in a circle of depression and something much darker. Can Hiro and Big Hero 6 help restore his dreams?
1. Chapter 1

**My first Big Hero 6 fanfiction! I rewrote and wrote this first chapter so many times, and had so many ideas: finally here it is!**

Tadashi leaned on the railing on the bridge.

"I know what you're going to say," Hiro said, joining him at the bridge. "'I should be proud of myself because I'm finally using my gift for something important,'" he continued in a pretty terrible imitation of Tadashi's voice.

"No, I was just going to tell you your fly was down for the whole show," Tadashi responded.

"Ha, ha, hilarious."

Tadashi gazed off innocently into the distance as he waited for Hiro to realize he had been telling the truth. Just as he'd predicted, Hiro gasped and zipped up his fly, and then thumped his brother. Laughing, Tadashi resumed his position on the railing.

"Welcome to nerd school," he said softly to his little brother.

As Hiro thanked him for not giving up on him, Tadashi smiled. He'd always known that Hiro had a vast reserve of potential locked up in his enormous brain. He'd hated how Hiro had squandered that potential on illegal bot fighting when it could be put to use helping so many people. He wanted to show Hiro what good could be done, how lives could be saved, with the invention and development of new tech. Hiro's microbots – that was just the beginning. Tadashi wanted his brother to share his dreams, to help people, to make a difference. Together, who knew what they'd accomplish? How could Tadashi possibly give up on his little brother, his best friend?

Tadashi gazed out at the university. He'd always had big dreams – Aunt Cass had always called him her dreamer boy. And now, he would be working with his brother, together, at the university. The future was limitless.

Until, of course, it wasn't.

Alarms started to blare. Tadashi turned around, his fantastic mood evaporating like water vapour as he heard screams of terror coming from the fair. Not even bothering to check if Hiro was following, he raced off, back the way they'd come.

Coming in sight of the convention building, Tadashi stopped in horror. It was engulfed in flames. People were screaming and running in all directions. Even from here, the heat was almost unbearable.

At his side, Hiro gasped in shock. Tadashi raced forward, ushering people away from the fire.

"Are you okay?" he exclaimed to a fellow student who collapsed against him.

"Yeah, I'm okay," she coughed, "but Professor Callaghan is still in there!" She raced off.

Tadashi turned his eyes on the burning building. Callaghan, his mentor, who'd inspired him to put his skills to use helping people. Callaghan was in danger. And there were probably more in there, as well – he couldn't let them die.

That wasn't how he'd been raised.

As he began to rush forward, he felt a hand catch at his wrist. Hiro was holding him back. "Tadashi, no!" he cried.

Tadashi turned back. "Callaghan is in there," he told his brother. "Someone has to help."

He willed his brother to understand. He couldn't stay here in safety while lives were lost, while people perished. He had to save them, or die trying. That was why he had signed up for SFIT – he had to save lives, and make a difference. This was what he wanted to do.

With effort, Tadashi tore himself away from Hiro, ignoring his brother's cries and pleas for him to come back. As he raced up the steps, he felt his cap fly off, but he didn't stop to get it. People were dying. He had to help.

Bursting through the glass doors into the convention building, all Tadashi could see was fire. Columns of flame, reaching up and eating away at the whole hall. It looked like a scene from hell. Tadashi could barely breathe – the fire was consuming all the air. His eyes watered from the smoke.

"Professor Callaghan!" he choked through the smoke, stumbling further into the building. "Professor! Are you there?"

The building shook. Tadashi was a scientist – he knew what that meant. Abandoning the thought of saving Callaghan, he turned to run.

An explosion ripped the world into two. Tadashi was flung to the ground, groaning in pain. He tried to move, but every muscle hurt. He couldn't see, he could barely breathe, he was coughing and choking.

"Professor?" he mumbled. Opening his eyes, he barely managed to peer through the smoke. He caught a glimpse of a figure, rising up on a black wave of – of _microbots_?

He had to be hallucinating. Tadashi tried to move, but he was trapped on all sides by fire. There was nowhere to go.

This was it.

"Hiro," he whispered, closing his eyes. His brother's face flashed before him under his closed eyelids – Hiro as he'd been just minutes before, smiling up to him on the bridge. Hiro gazing at him in anguish, just before he rushed into the burning building. Tadashi felt overwhelming sorrow, sadness for the life he wouldn't live, at the chance of missing out on Hiro's growth. There was so much they could've done together. Hiro, his little brother, his best friend, who he loved more than anyone else in the world – and who he was leaving all alone.

"I'm sorry, Hiro," he whispered. "I couldn't help."

The ceiling crumbled, debris falling to crush him. The flames rose higher and higher. The fire turned the world orange and red and yellow, and then there was nothing but blackness.

**What did you guys think? Reviews please!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey everyone!**

Pain. A world of pain.

Shapes flickered behind Tadashi's closed eyelids, and they were the whole world.

Tadashi moaned and tried to swat away the nightmares, but they just became more vivid, and more terrible.

Lucidity was the dream, and this was reality.

_"Minor burns to the upper torso and arms, serious burns to the legs…"_

_ "Broken bones – crushed ankles…"_

_ "Inflamed nerves – we're looking at permanent damage here, doctor…"_

In between the dreams, Tadashi heard fractured conversations, which made no sense to him.

_"Lucky he wasn't hurt too badly…lucky the firemen arrived when they did…"_

_ "Lucky? Some might say unlucky…some might say death would be more merciful…"_

Tadashi wanted to scream, but there was no one listening.

With a gargantuan effort, he prised open his eyes.

He was in a white room. He could vaguely hear the beeping of a monitor next to him. A nurse, leaning over him. Her eyes widened. Her mouth opened, her lips moved, but he didn't hear what she said, because suddenly the pain seized him again, and the nurse and the room went spinning away, and darkness returned.

**~~Page Break~~**

Monsters.

The monsters he'd always been scared of as a little boy had at last come to plague him. The monsters he had told himself weren't real, the monsters he'd told Hiro weren't real as they lay together in bed, Tadashi's body shielding Hiro. Where was Hiro now? There was no one to protect Tadashi from the monsters.

Beasts.

_No! No…_

Tadashi tried to resist, but the monsters came closer.

Gasping for breath, he pushed away, and went spinning back into cold, merciful blackness.

**~~Page Break~~**

"No…no…"

"Doctor! He's speaking!"

Tadashi groaned. It hurt.

"Tadashi? Tadashi, can you hear me?"

Tadashi tried to say something, but his voice wouldn't work. He couldn't say anything.

"Tadashi?"

_I'm here!_ Tadashi tried to shout. _I'm awake!_

"No, he's still unconscious." The doctor sounded disappointed. "Give him some more morphine."

_No!_

The morphine was added, and Tadashi felt himself slipping away.

**~~Page Break~~**

And so it continued, Tadashi slipping in and out of lucidity, consciousness, sanity.

And as it continued, Tadashi found himself more and more able to cling onto consciousness. His lucid spells became more frequent, and longer.

He was awake, lying still but conscious, when suddenly the nurse said, "Doctor, his heart rate is increasing."

A few footsteps. The doctor was coming to check the monitor.

"So it is." The doctor sounded surprised.

"Do you think he might be – conscious?"

"I don't know."

_I am!_

"Nurse, incline his seat and speak to him."

Tadashi was aware of a shift in his position as he began to sit up.

"Can you hear me?" The nurse's voice was soothing. "Can you hear me?"

_Now's your chance_.

Tadashi forced his lips to move, and a croaky sound issued from his lips. "Y-yes…"

"Yes, yes, you can!" The nurse's voice sounded excited. "Doctor, he responded!"

"Yes, nurse, I heard him. I must go contact his family. You keep on talking to him."

"Okay, champ, what's your name?"

"T-Tadashi Hamada…"

"That's right, that's right…how are you feeling?"

With another enormous effort, Tadashi forced his eyes open, and found himself back in the white hospital room. The nurse gasped, her mouth quirking wide in delight.

"Tired," Tadashi admitted.

"You mustn't let yourself fall back asleep…how long have you been awake like this?"

"I don't know…"

"No, no, of course you don't." The nurse shook her head as if rebuking herself.

"F-family…"

"Your family is on their way. Oh, they're going to be delighted to learn that you're not dead!"

Tadashi's eyes widened, and the nurse must've seen it, because she looked shocked. "I mean…"

"Dead?"

"Um…"

"Why d-dead?" It was all Tadashi could manage, but he had to hope the nurse understood his meaning.

The nurse looked very uncomfortable. "After the fire, your body was recovered by some firemen, along with the bodies of several others trapped in the building. You've been here at this hospital ever since. Your family doesn't know you're here – we were under orders from the authorities…"

"W-what?"

"Maybe it's best you take a break now," the nurse soothed him. "Take a quick break."

But Tadashi wasn't done. "How long?"

"How long since – the fire?" The nurse looked uncomfortable again. "Tadashi – you've been asleep eighteen months."

**~~Page Break~~**

"Doctor, I have a mind to sue this hospital."

"Ms. Hamada, you must calm down."

"I will _not_ calm down!" Hiro had never seen Aunt Cass so furious. "Eighteen months, doctor! Eighteen months, thinking Tadashi was dead. Do you know I've suffered? Do you know how we have mourned? You hid his body from us, told us that it had to be taken straight to the morgue so we didn't even have anything to bury. We grieved, we mourned, our lives were ruined. And now you have the effrontery to tell me that I have to calm down?!"

"We were under orders from the authorities, Ms. Hamada. Tadashi and some of the survivors from the fire were given an experimental drug, one with low levels of sustaining life. Your nephew is the only one who was able to survive the drugs. He has been monitored from the beginning until now, but he has only today been observed to regain consciousness. The authorities were anxious to keep news of the experimental treatment a secret."

"Okay, okay." Hiro watched Aunt Cass visibly clamp a lid on her temper. "What damage has he suffered?"

"He somehow managed to survive the worst of the fire, given that he was near the exit at the time of the explosion. His legs were found trapped under a fallen beam. His left leg suffered severe burns and permanent damage. It became inflamed after a time, and we had no alternative but to amputate it."

Aunt Cass put a hand to her mouth, and Hiro saw the tears course down her cheeks. He himself struggled to hold back his own tears. His brother, with his left leg gone.

"On his right leg, from his knee downwards, he lost a lot of skin, and a great deal of skin grafting and further surgeries were required, but amputation was not deemed necessary. The severe burns on his thighs and lower torso have been treated and have largely disappeared. The minor burns he suffered on his upper torso and arms have also disappeared, but scars from falling debris remain, of many different sizes, across his torso and arms. Neurological tests indicate that he has suffered no brain damage at all. As for his hands - they were trapped by fallen debris. He's lost three fingers on his left hand and two on his right."

For the first time, Hiro spoke. "Can we see him?"

The doctor looked at him, not unsympathetically. "Not at this time. His condition is as yet unstable. Once doctors are able to stabilize him, he will be able to receive visitors."

Hiro turned his eyes to the door that led into the corridor with patients' room. Tadashi was behind that door. Tadashi, who he had not seen for eighteen months, who he had mourned, grieved, and from whom he had eventually moved on. Tadashi, who had never been forgotten.

_Hang in there, Tadashi. I'm not giving up on you_.

**Reviews please!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Sooo, Tadashi's finally woken! How does he feel...**

"Tadashi?" The nurse tried for an excited grin this time. "Tadashi?"

Tadashi didn't respond. He stared at the cup of coffee sitting next to him on the bedside table, then shifted his gaze to his lap.

Eighteen months. He'd lost eighteen months of his life. He'd also lost his left leg from the knee down. His body was riddled with scars which would never leave him, serving forever as a memory of what had ruined him. And his hands – his mangled hands. He looked at them now. His right hand was missing its pinkie and its middle finger – he could still hold a pen. His left hand was missing those two fingers and the index finger to boot. What a joke.

"I'll never be able to work on robotics again," he murmured.

The nurse looked uncomfortable. "There are plenty of other things you can do," she offered. "There's a world of possibility out there."

Tadashi continued staring at his hands. "Not with these hands."

There was another pause, and then the nurse bravely continued.

"Your family called again – they're wondering if they can see you. Do you feel ready?"

Tadashi's family. They'd called again. Even now, with this numbness, Tadashi wanted to see them – see his brother, his aunt. He wanted to see them and hug them and never leave them again. Tadashi loved his family deeply. What had happened to them in the eighteen months since the fire?

And how could he let them see him like this?

He'd always be a burden to them. He couldn't work, he couldn't do anything. He'd never be of use to them. How could he be that to them?

He shook his head. "No, I don't feel ready."

"Tadashi, you're going to have to see them eventually."

"But not today," Tadashi insisted. "I can't see them. Not today."

The nurse gave up. "Would you at least like to try walking?" She gestured to a pair of crutches by the hospital bed. "You've made such excellent progress these past few days."

Tadashi knew she was lying. He hadn't made excellent progress. He'd barely been trying. He could walk across the room and across the corridor with his crutches, but his heart wasn't in it.

He sighed and kicked back the blankets. "Okay."

"Good, good," the nurse said, relieved, and she came forward to help Tadashi to the floor.

Tadashi's single foot touched the ground, and he wobbled uncertainly. He lurched for the crutches, and grabbed hold of them. The nurse's hands went out uncertainly.

Slowly, Tadashi positioned himself until he was leaning on both crutches. His right foot balanced on the floor. His left leg – no, sorry, his left _stump_ – dangled helplessly. Tadashi waved the stump backward and forward. Pathetic, what he'd been reduced to.

Gingerly, Tadashi moved the crutches forward. He leaned on them, and then moved his foot forward. Thus, it continued. He made very slow progress out of the room and into the corridor, the nurse following on her two healthy feet.

Outside, the doctors and nurses gave him a wide berth as he struggled down the corridor. He couldn't stand the sympathetic looks many of them gave him. He was an object of pity now. He hated it.

Tadashi's world had shrunk. It had shrunk to this corridor and his room. He would eventually reach the end of the corridor. Then he would turn back and hobble his way back to his room. Once he was back, he would refuse his nurse's help and pull his way back into his bed. That was it. That was the extent of what he could do. He'd been reduced to this meaningless life.

One of his crutches slipped, and Tadashi braced himself as he crashed to the ground. The sudden pain that flared up across his face and chest as he struck the floor was nothing compared to the pain he felt inside.

His nurse let out a startled cry, and he heard footsteps as medical staff came running to help him up. He closed his eyes.

_Leave me alone_, he begged them silently. _Leave me alone_.

They helped him up and escorted him to his room. Tadashi's nurse excused herself, and left him alone. Tadashi curled up in his bed.

All the happiness, all the hopes and dreams and optimism that he'd had before the fire – that had all evaporated. All that was left inside him was despair. He didn't have a future anymore. He didn't have anything anymore.

As tears began to course down Tadashi's cheeks, he suddenly recalled a conversation he'd had with Hiro years before, when he was eleven and Hiro was seven. Hiro had been crying from nightmares, and Tadashi had come to comfort him.

_"Big boys don't cry," Tadashi tells Hiro, trying to think of something to say to comfort Hiro. _

_ "Yes they do," Hiro replies, wiping his eyes. "They cry when they're very scared. They cry when there's something very scary happening and they don't know what to do." _

How right Hiro had been. Tadashi thought about that as he wept silently, and drifted off to a miserable sleep.

**Reviews please!**


	4. Chapter 4

As Tadashi blinked open his eyes, he got the sense that he was being watched. Turning this way and that, he finally located the source of the staring.

Hiro. His little brother. Sitting a few metres away, just looking at him.

The passage of time hit him. Hiro had changed – Hiro had grown up. He was taller now, more muscular now. He'd cut his hair, so he looked more grown-up, too. He wasn't a fourteen-year-old beanpole anymore – here stood a sixteen-year-old with a stronger build. His eyes, his gaze – they had changed too. More confident. Hardier. And right now, filled with concern.

"Tadashi," he breathed when he realized Tadashi was up.

Tadashi groaned. "Were you watching me sleep?"

"Um – yeah."

Tadashi sighed. "Not much I can do about it, eh?" He tried to sit up, and winced. "How did you get in here?"

"I insisted. Aunt Cass insisted, actually. I don't know how, but the doctors gave in, and well, here I am."

"I thought I told them to turn all visitors away."

Hiro recoiled as if he'd been slapped, and Tadashi felt a pang of guilt. But that was how he truly felt. He couldn't bear to be seen like this – a cripple.

"Tadashi, come home," Hiro said softly. "Come out of this hospital."

Tadashi shook his head. "I can't. Don't you see? There's no place for me in the outside world anymore. I'd just be a burden to you and Aunt Cass, always getting in the way. Let me stay here."

"No." Hiro's voice had taken on a much firmer quality. "I'm not giving up on you."

Tadashi flinched at the words that he'd said to Hiro so many times before, now thrown back in his face. "Don't say that."

"Well, I am. Because it's true. I'm not giving up on you – you're my brother."

Tadashi looked at himself. "How can you do it?" he whispered. "How can you look at me, and still remember me as your brother? Look at my hands!"

He waved them, and Hiro's eyes widened. "Look at these stumps! They're ruined! For God's sake, I only have one leg! I'm a cripple!"

"Don't say that – "

"I'm a cripple." Suddenly exhausted, Tadashi leaned back. "I've been ruined. Permanently. And I don't know what to do anymore."

**~~Page Break~~**

Hiro stared at Tadashi. He'd changed, for sure. For one thing, he was missing fingers. For another, he was missing half his left leg – it ended in just a stump now. But more than that, his spirit had changed.

Looking into Tadashi's eyes, Hiro saw none of the optimism, the joy, that had always been there in the big brother he'd known growing up. Gone was the boundless enthusiasm for everything, the keenness to learn, the eagerness to help, that Hiro had always associated with Tadashi. Eyes were like a window into the soul, and Tadashi's had always been flung wide open, inviting everyone to see. The hopes and dreams that he had cultivated had been there to read in his wide, brown eyes.

Now, instead, Hiro saw nothing but defeat. The eyes were duller now, and overshadowed. Lifeless, almost. They flicked from side to side, before seeming to give up and rest on anything but Hiro, with none of the straightforwardness and honesty they'd had before. The hopes and dreams had wilted like flowers in winter. Hiro sensed that the window was being drawn closed, and Tadashi was retreating into himself. There was only one thing to be seen in Tadashi's eyes – a rising barrier, built of steel. And behind it, barely visible, was the loss, the uncertainty, and the hurt.

Tadashi's spirit had been completely crushed. Perhaps there was something to be said for comas, and the blissful ignorance that went along with them.

"Tadashi," he breathed, "please. Come home. We all love you – Aunt Cass, our friends. Mochi, that damn cat, knows something's up – he's so restless. And Baymax – he's waiting for you too."

Tadashi's head lifted up, and something sparked in his eyes. Was that curiosity? "Baymax?" he murmured. "He's still functional?"

"Oh, yeah." Hiro forced himself to smile. "You might want to come home and see for yourself. A lot has changed in those eighteen months."

The spark of curiosity in Tadashi's eyes seemed to burn for a few more moments, before something quenched it. Tadashi sank back onto his pillows, once more the picture of defeat. "Fine," he said flatly, "I'll come home."

"You will?"

"I get the feeling that you won't give up until you get me home, anyway."

"Thank you," Hiro stammered, getting up. "I'll tell the doctors!"

Tadashi didn't move as Hiro bolted out the door.

_You're right, Tadashi. I'm not giving up on you. I'm not going to rest until you're fully home – not just your body, the brother that I love_.


	5. Chapter 5

**Hello everybody!**

Baymax had changed too.

Tadashi eyed Baymax's new armour doubtfully. This wasn't how he'd designed Baymax. "What did you do to him?"

"I added a few manoeuvres," Hiro admitted. "Part of making him part of Big Hero 6."

"Hello, Tadashi," Baymax said in his robotic monotone. "I am Baymax, your personal healthcare – "

"I know who you are, I made you," Tadashi said harshly.

Using his crutches, he hobbled to his corner of the bedroom. His bed was as he'd last seen it – his books, his shelves, even his bed sheets untouched and undisturbed.

"We didn't get rid of anything," Hiro said softly. "We couldn't bear to."

Tadashi nodded. "Yeah. Thanks."

On his pillow sat his San Fransokyo baseball cap. Tadashi remembered how he'd always worn it. It had been a gift from his parents, and he'd never taken it off, except of course when his high school teachers made him. For him, his cap had symbolized hard work, big dreams, everything that his parents had wanted to impart to him.

Now, he batted it to the floor as he sat on the bed, tossing his crutches to one side. He moved his one leg and his stump to the bed and lay on the familiar mattress.

"Tadashi?" Hiro peered in at him.

"Could you draw my curtain closed, please?" Tadashi gestured to the curtain that separated his corner from the rest of the bedroom.

Hiro's face contorted briefly in grief, then drew the curtain shut. Tadashi was left the way he wanted to be: alone, with only his terrible self-hatred for company.

**~~Page Break~~**

A few days later, his college friends stopped by. He'd known it would only be a matter of time before they showed up.

He heard them tiptoeing up the stairs, whispering excitedly. And then, what a surprise, they burst through the curtain, grinning happily.

"Tadashi!" they exclaimed.

Tadashi tried to muster a smile from them – they had, after all, come to see him – but failed. His mouth instead drooped back into the frown he'd found it in more or less continuously since he woke up.

"Hi," he said quietly.

Wasabi's face fell, and Tadashi felt slightly guilty, but not enough to grin properly.

Fred stepped forward. "Hey, buddy," he said. "How're you doing?"

He crushed Tadashi in a hug which Tadashi only half-heartedly returned.

Fred withdrew, surprised. "Man, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Tadashi said shortly.

His friends exchanged glances.

"Tadashi?" said Wasabi uncertainly. "We're just worried about you, you know?"

Tadashi didn't respond.

"Hiro told us that you're a bit – down."

"Down?" Tadashi laughed bitterly. "That's a nice way of putting it."

There was a whir of gears.

"Contact from friends and loved ones is known to help alleviate bad moods," Baymax volunteered, shuffling forward awkwardly. He had shed his red armour and stood before Tadashi in all his white huggable glory. "I contacted your friends to improve your emotional state."

"My emotional state is just fine," Tadashi grumbled.

"No, it's not," Go-Go stepped forward. "Look, Tadashi, I don't know what you think you're achieving by being like this, but this is stupid."

"Go-Go," Honey Lemon cautioned.

"No, I'm serious. This is really dumb. You can't spend the rest of your life wallowing in self-pity like this."

"What life?" Tadashi murmured. "A life with these?" He held up his mangled hands.

To their credit, his friends tried to smooth out their expressions, but it was too late – he'd seen them recoil.

"There are lots of things besides robotics that you can work on," Honey said softly. "This isn't a limitation."

"Yeah, well, it sure seems that way." Tadashi collapsed back onto his bed. "And everyone keeps saying that. It's not true. Every career you can possibly think of – it requires a pair of functional hands. And what's more, I'm missing a leg. Did you know that?"

"Half a leg," Wasabi corrected softly, before Go-Go elbowed him.

"I'm a cripple." Tadashi turned away. "And there's nothing you guys can do about it. Just please – leave me alone."

With a few murmurs, his friends left. Tadashi felt a cool hand on his neck – it was Honey Lemon. "We're here for you," she murmured. Then she, too, retreated.

Tadashi thought he was alone until he heard a robotic voice speak.

"Will being left alone improve your emotional state?"

"No," Tadashi ground through gritted teeth, "but it will help me stay sane. Now please, _please_, leave."

The metal whirring told him Baymax had left too. Only then did Tadashi allow himself to fall into a bitter, unhappy sleep.

It seemed that was all he could do these days without help.

**I'm sorry if Tadashi seems a little OOC, it's just I want to depict his emotional damage. Who knows? Maybe he'll be seeing an emotional recovery very soon :) Let me know what you guys think in the reviews!**


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